Thursday, October 8, 2009

Business Ethics?

Rather than try and answer Giroux's incendiary question (as he seems to have done a rather complete job of that) I'd like to examine the implications that such a question implies. Namely that children's films (and by association the producers of children's films) have a "responsibility" to be decent and moral, a standard the rest of the industry seems utterly exempt from. While I might agree that the tax-payer supported educational system (which does not own a vested interest in the Disney Corporation) has a responsibility to ensure the positive development of children, the $62.5 billion dollar corporation which has animated the last century does not. Ultimately they have a responsibility to their shareholders, to anyone with the notated NYSE: DIS in their portfolio. Not a moral one, not an ethical one, but a financial one.